Welcome to this edition of “From The Archive”. In this recurring series, we open The Hockey News’ vault and display some of the top Vancouver Canucks related articles from the past. Today’s article comes from Volume 35, Issue 32, where The Hockey News wrote about the “The great towel-waving episode of the 1982 Stanley Cup playoffs.”
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Canucks Spurred By Towel-Waving Vancouver Fans, Volume 35, Issue 32, May 14, 1982
The great towel-waving episode of the 1982 Stanley Cup playoffs appeared to be catching on with Vancouver hockey fans and if anything it seemed to be providing the Canucks with the incentive they needed to knock off Chicago in their Campbell Conference final series.
The Canucks split the first two games in Chicago and then came back home to take a 2-1 lead in their best-of-seven conference final for the right to oppose the Wales Conference winner—either the New York Islanders or the Quebec Nordiques—in the Stanley Cup final.
The Canucks, fined $11,000 by the NHL for waving towels on the end of hockey sticks in protest over the officiating, were getting some unexpected support from their hometown fans, who were shelling out $4.95 each to purchase the specially marked towels to wave at the Black Hawks.
Following are the capsule reports of the Campbell Conference final series.
Game One: Jim Nill’s goal at 8:58 of the second overtime gave the Canucks a 2-1 victory and first blood in the Campbell Conference championship against the Black Hawks, but the real story once again was the goaltending of Vancouver’s Richard Brodeur.
The Canucks’ 5-7, 160-pound netminder stopped all but one of 47 shots hurled his way in bringing his playoff record this year to a sparkling eight wins against just one loss. Brodeur was particularly frustrating for Doug Wilson and Tom Lysiak, two of the Black Hawks’ leading scorers, who combined for 15 shots on the Vancouver goal and came away empty.
The only goal that got past Brodeur was a backhander rolled in by Terry Ruskowski in the first period which tied the contest at 1-1 at the 10:11 mark. And it remained that way for close to 79 minutes before either team could score again.
Thomas Gradin opened the game’s scoring at 8:02 of the first period when he put in a pass from Curt Fraser for his fourth score of the playoffs.
Ruskowski notched his first playoff goal after a great set-up by Rich Preston,…